Vera Lantz
Medium and Small Appliance Repair
They went in anyway.
* * *
43Zeus did everything doggedly.
Chapter 24
The gag (wrote Rhinnick, a few hours later, tucked away in a spare bedroom) boils down to this: The sign on Vera’s shop, or emporium if you prefer, bore the legend Medium and Small Appliance Repair, the cleverest bit of wordplay to cross my orbit since the Times had featured the headline Prostitutes Appeal to the Mayor.
I explained the gag for the benefit of those present, and was disappointed to see that it wasn’t received as hot stuff. Napoleon Number Four — or Nappy, if you prefer, this being a nickname Zeus had affixed to her in recent days — joined Zeus in giving my enlightening bit of exposition a disinterested “oh, ah” before the two returned their attentions to the ailing Tonto. Tonto herself, groan and twitch though she might, remained resolutely asnooze.
As for my loyal roommate and sidekick, Ian Brown, he merely shrugged the shoulders in that resigned, lumpen manner he often exhibits. After a moment of quiet reflection he broke his silence with the following words:
“You’re sure about this,” said he.
“Sure about what?” I riposted.
“That Vera’s a medium,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what the sign means.” And I’ll be dashed if he didn’t make this last pronouncement in a rummy sort of skeptical tone, dripping with doubt and disbelief.
“Silly ass,” I said. “This sign is nothing more than a whatdyoucallit. Camouflage, I believe the expression is. A ruse, as it were. Something to throw undesirables off the scent. Those who’ve heard of Vera and appreciate her soothsaying skills will see the sign and say to themselves ‘What ho, here is Vera, a medium who might also repair small appliances.’ But consider the position of those who haven’t heard of Vera. These passersby will gaze upon the sign and say, ‘Oh, ah, here is a place specializing in the repair of small appliances — say, toasters and what have you — and also equipped to handle somewhat larger contrivances, perhaps lawnmowers and barbecues, to name but two.’”
But passing over this sign for the nonce — or rather under it, which is what we had to do to gain entrance — we oiled into the emporium, Zeus bringing up the rear with a Tonto over his shoulder and a Nappy at his side, Ian shuffling along in the foreground beside yours truly, his face and posture registering an unbecoming sort of dubious broodiness that didn’t, in my opinion, suit the occasion.
The shop into which we trickled gave the impression of being a clearing house for highly technical doodads with their outside bits removed. There were shelves festooned with damaged datapads, defunct toasters, ailing blenders, dispirited light-bore generators, and the corpses of microwave ovens, as well as tables stacked with disassembled gadgets and broken gizmos of every species. Our collective ears were assaulted by the whirring of gears and thrumming of pistons, as well as a faint mechanical buzzing, as one might hear if trapped in an echo chamber with a robotic bee. Numerous tangles of multicoloured, plastic-coated wire protruded from the ceiling, some bits of it spewing brief showers of orange sparks at random intervals.
The air smelled of the acrid smoke of industry, the heavy tang of oil, and — to our surprise — the pleasing scent of cherry blossoms.
This last named aroma was, I perceived, emanating from an eau de cologne that had been dabbed about the person of a smallish woman who — or is it whom? — I now beheld between the carcasses of two bookcase-sized computers. We knew at a glance that we were faced with the proprietress in person: Vera Lantz, mysterious seer, happy medium, and widely respected oracle of Detroit.
As a matter of pure logic, this Vera must be described as medium-sized. But in physical appearance she presented as one of those petite, shrimp-like, elfin women who might get lost in an unmowed lawn. She featured all of the trimmings common to this species: the button nose, the twinkling eyes, the windswept, pixieish hairdo, and the mischievous grin can all be taken as read. But where she broke from the mould was with her oil-stained leather apron, her scorched welder’s visor, her flaming acetylene torch, and her general air of self-assurance and confidence, which on the whole gave the impression of one who strutted around as though she owned the place. Understandable, of course, because she did.
She flipped her visor into Position One and smiled.
“Ahoy there, Medium,” I said.
“Heya, Plum!” she said, with bubbling enthusiasm and, unless I was much mistaken, a curious note of joyful recognition.
And you’ll understand my astonishment when you learn that this most recent remark had been levelled squarely at me.
I was taken aback. I mean to say, I don’t know how you’d feel about being addressed as Plum — or, for those of you named Plum, how you’d feel about being addressed as Smith, Robinson, Murray, or Horvath-Mimsy-Plimpton — but it struck me as a rather rummy business. One does not, of course, amble about the map expecting global recognition, but when one crosses paths with a psychic shrimp like this Vera, and she exhibits all the cozy familiarity of a longtime, bosom chum, one doesn’t anticipate misbranding.
Though momentarily nonplussed, I rallied quickly, and pressed for elaboration.
“Ms. Lantz,” I said, displaying the merest touch of that Feynman hauteur which has been so widely publicized, “did you just say ‘Heya, Plum’?”
“Of course I did!” she chirped. And I’ll be dashed if she didn’t postscript this last utterance with an airy, tinkling laugh.
“And this remark was addressed to me?”
“Well . . . yeah,” she said, quizzically, cocking her head to one side and squinting slightly as though I had been the one babbling nonsense.
“Could you run it past me again?” I suggested. “This ‘Heya Plum’ sequence, I mean. It’s just that — if you don’t mind my saying — it doesn’t seem to mean anything. One detects the note of greeting, but it’s this Plum element that leaves the brain befogged.”
And you will scarcely believe what she said by way of reply. In fact, if you’re not already sitting down as you flip through these memoirs, I advocate parking yourself in a nearby chair, preferably well-cushioned. What’s coming round the bend is a bit of a doozy.
“It’s your name,” she said, a sort of puzzled, bemused expression washing across her dial. She threw in a light, tentative giggle, as though we were two ancient buddies exchanging convivial whatnots and she suspected one of her legs was being pulled. “The last time we spoke,” she added, “a week or two ago, you told me that you’d like to be called —”
“His name is Rhinnick,” supplied Zeus, loyally shoving an oar in from the sidelines, eager as always to render aid.
“Rhinnick Feynman,” I said, specifying. One doesn’t know how many Rhinnicks are scattered about Detroit, and one likes to aim for precision.
Vera appeared confused by this, which struck me as odd. I mean to say, I’m not one to question the Author or His methods, but I’ll be dashed if I can see what He was thinking when He sketched out Vera’s character. It seemed to me that giving a medium an overall air of baffled dumbfoundedness was at odds with the whole idea of a medium, unless the Author’s goal was a bit of ironical whathaveyou. The dazed expression and furrowed brow undermine one’s credibility as a seer of hidden truths. You can do one of two things in this life, I remember thinking to myself. You can either walk about what-the-hecking in a slack-jawed, boggle-minded manner, or you can be a psychic medium, possessed of television and keen insights beyond the ken of ordinary chumps. Not both. But here was Vera, clearly a medium, but also baffled as a goldfish.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Didn’t you tell me that you preferred to be called —”
And here she faltered. Whatever she’d been about to say, she didn’t. Instead, she fell into a sudden silence and creased the brow, mirroring, as it were, the clouds o
f bewilderment I imagine had appeared on the Feynman map.
“We haven’t met before, have we?” she said. This was said in a grave-ish tone, at least by comparison to this Vera’s earlier manner, which one could only describe as bubbly. Or possibly effervescent, or ebullient, if one preferred longer words beginning with e.
“No, we haven’t,” I said. “I’d have remembered.”
“And you haven’t found Penelope,” said Vera.
“Very true,” I said, “but getting back to the matter at issue, this name Plum —”
“How do you know about Penelope?” said Ian, although the verbs “barked” or “blurted” might be a good deal mot juste-r, as this sudden ejaculation had shot out of him like a cannon. (Or rather, it shot out of him like a cannonball shoots out of a cannon, cannons themselves not actually shooting out of anything, if you follow.) But the point I wish to convey is that this Brown’s entire demeanour suddenly smacked of vim and vigour such as Ian hadn’t displayed since his earliest days in the hospice. Nor was he willing to put a stopper on the vim and v. after this initial salvo. On the contrary, the syllables “Where did you hear —” had already squirted through his lips before I managed to mount a proper intervention.
“We will get to that in a moment, impatient roommate,” I said, checking him with a gesture. “For the moment, let us get back to the res, or primary talking point, and return our focus to the matter of ‘Heya Plum.’ What I wish to know is this: Why would you, Ms. Lantz, refer to me as —”
“Sorry,” said Vera, and I began to wonder if anyone in this shop would be allowed to finish a thought. “This is important,” she continued, before loosing one of the oddest utterances I’d heard in several months, which is saying something. Here’s what this utterance was:
“Tell me,” she said, building up to it, “is any of this happening right now?”
And she put a good deal of topspin onto the last two syllables.
“I daresay it is,” I said, at the same moment that Ian chimed in with something along the lines of “Huh?” or possibly “Wha?” thereby tipping his hand as an easily baffled boob.
“Dammit,” said Vera, who followed the profanity with a quiet, muttered apology. She inserted an index finger into one of her earholes — the left, if memory serves — and gave it a decisive and authoritative wiggle.
The rest of the entourage stood silently agog as Vera carried out her bit of aural twiddling. It was Ian — his store of patience fully ebbed — who was first to break the silence.
“But Penelope,” he said, still with a strong note of urgency, “You said something about us finding Penelope.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, adding another, somewhat Ian-like apology to her earlier effort. “It’s my TV,” she explained, putting a palm to her forehead by way of practical demonstration. “I leave it on when I’m by myself. It keeps me company, you know? But it can get a little confusing — I mean, if people drop in unexpectedly while I’m in the middle of a viewing. My wires get all crossed and — well, you know how it is. Kind of an occupational hazard. Know what I mean?”
I assured her that we didn’t.
“Right. Right. I guess you wouldn’t,” she said, doffing her visor and setting aside the torch. “It’s hard to explain to people who don’t have TV. But try to imagine what it’s like. You’re sitting at home, by yourself, televiewing — using TV, I mean, second sight. You’re peering into the past, the present, and the future. You’re not watching anything in particular — just seeing whatever you see. Anyway, if you’re anything like most televiewers — not that there are many of us, really, probably no more than a dozen or so in Detroit, right, but bear with me — if you’re anything like the rest of us, your mind might start to wander. It just happens. You start flipping mental channels back and forth between the future and the past, or viewing things that are happening far away, in the present, and you lose track of how the pieces fit together. Any scene you view might not give you the clues you need to zero in on the wheres and whens. You just see these images flashing past you, and can’t really pin down what you’re seeing — maybe it’s the past, maybe it’s the present, and maybe it’s the future. You just can’t tell. You follow?”
She paused here, apparently seeking affirmation. None arrived. Instead, Ian and self blinked mutely. Zeus and Nappy, for their part, appeared to have ceased paying attention altogether, and presently repaired to a nearby corner to continue rousing Tonto, whom they now laid out on a decluttered bit of table.
Seeing that she hadn’t managed to captivate her audience, Vera shifted gears, moving from what you might call broad, abstract strokes to concrete examples.
“All right,” she said. “Say you’re looking into the future, right, and somebody suddenly comes up to you — in the present, I mean, in real life, not in television. Assume that it’s some guy you’ve just been televiewing, and he suddenly shows up, right there beside you, and starts a conversation. Your attention is focused inward, right, on your TV, and this guy’s suddenly standing there beside you telling you something here and now. You get mixed up. Unless you’re really on the ball, you have a hard time separating what’s happening now from what you’re seeing through TV. It’s even worse if you’ve never actually met the guy before, but have seen yourself meeting him in the future. It’s totally awkward and confusing. I mean, you’ve been watching him through television, right, and have this false sense of connection to him, a kind of intimacy, I guess. And when you finally do meet — in person I mean, not through TV — you might react as though you actually know each other, forgetting that any conversations you might’ve televiewed in the past — your past I mean, not his — actually haven’t happened yet. At least not for him. Because they’re in his future, right? So you know all about him — including stuff that hasn’t happened yet — and he might not know you at all. You can see how messy that’d be. You — the televiewer, I mean — might accidentally mention conversations that haven’t happened yet, or assume that this person has already done things that he isn’t really going to do until sometime later, and then he just looks at you like you’re an idiot. Anyway, that’s why it gets confusing. If that makes any sense at all.”
I was fairly sure that it didn’t, but I did feel that she deserved a blue ribbon for the longest sustained slab of high-speed dialogue I’d encountered in quite a while. Ian, for his part, didn’t seem the least bit interested in this medium’s personal trials and tribulations. Instead, he wished to buttonhole the conversation by focusing on his own concerns.
“But Penelope,” he said in tremulous tones, if tremulous is the word I want. “How do you know about Penelope?”
“Hold your question, my dear fathead,” I said, reaching over and patting his shoulder in that kindly, comforting way of mine. “As we agreed, I shall handle the cross-examinations. I know how to deal with these mediums. Trust in Feynman,” I added, smiling benevolently, “and all will be made clear.”
I gave her one of my steely glares.
“See here, medium,” I began, somewhat austerely. “Do you intend to imply that your TV — viz, your faculty for peering into the future, or perceiving different times and places — has revealed to you some future meeting or meetings in which the search for Penelope will be discussed, and where I, for whatever reason, will tell you to call me Plum?”
“Exactly,” she said, appearing relieved.
“And zeroing in on this name Plum,” I continued. “You suggest that this nom-de-Plum, as it were, is one that I embraced wholeheartedly, suggesting that —”
It was at this point that Ian made what I believe is called an impassioned gesture. Whether he actually threw his hands up to the skies, pulled at his hair, or wrung his hands I cannot recall, but whatever he did its meaning was clear. Understandable I suppose, as the mere mention of the name “Penelope” always got right in amongst him. And despite the offence I might have taken at this de
parture from proper protocol, I sunk my dudgeon and held the Feynman tongue. As anyone who has reviewed my character sketch will tell you, Rhinnick Feynman’s personal motto is “Pals First.” Setting aside my own interests, I wasted no time in altering course. Placing a conciliatory hand on Ian’s shoulder, and locking eyes with Vera, I spoke as follows: “But passing over this Plum issue,” I began, “let us discuss Penelope.”
“Please,” said Ian, taking his own run at the thing, “if you know anything about Penelope — anything at all — you’ve got to tell us, and . . . wait,” he said, interrupting himself abruptly, “how do you even know her name?”
“Television,” said Vera.
“You mean —”
“Television,” she repeated. “I saw it all in the future. All sorts of things about Penelope. But it all started with you coming here, telling me about mindwipes and Beforelife Delusion, and then saying that what really mattered to you was Penelope. You told me she was your wife. Well, he told me she was your wife,” she added, inclining the bean in my direction, “but you seemed to agree with him.”
“So this is for real,” said Ian, agog and ungrammatical. “I mean — television. Seeing the future. It’s just that . . . well, Rhinnick said you were a psychic, but I thought that was just part of his . . . well, never mind that now. But what you said about televiewing — and then, you know Penelope’s name . . . I mean . . . you mean it’s really —”
“Of course it’s real,” said Vera, reassuringly. “Look, I’m sorry to have mentioned Penelope — I shouldn’t have done that yet. I see I’ve upset you. Just try to forget that I —”
“Is she all right?” said Ian, urgently.
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